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  1. Comment on What is your weirdest kitchen appliance and what do you think of it? in ~food

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    My secret is that it was a gift so I didn't actually pay for it myself. Same for my sous vide tank and espresso maker. I also hesitate a lot if I'm the one who has to pay for the thing, for...

    My secret is that it was a gift so I didn't actually pay for it myself. Same for my sous vide tank and espresso maker. I also hesitate a lot if I'm the one who has to pay for the thing, for example maybe one day I'll finally grab an instant pot for myself (I know it's way cheaper but that's how much harder it is...)

    2 votes

  2. Comment on What is your weirdest kitchen appliance and what do you think of it? in ~food

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    I have had a thermomix for ten years, it's very useful for all manner of things, including making and kneading pizza dough. Maybe you'd find the resulting dough uneven though!

    I have had a thermomix for ten years, it's very useful for all manner of things, including making and kneading pizza dough. Maybe you'd find the resulting dough uneven though!

    8 votes

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

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    Last Time I Saw You was, by the dev's own admission, directly inspired by Night in the Woods. Much like it, it's a mainly narrative game with a 2D sidescrolling perspective. It takes place in an...

    Last Time I Saw You was, by the dev's own admission, directly inspired by Night in the Woods. Much like it, it's a mainly narrative game with a 2D sidescrolling perspective. It takes place in an October in the 1980s, in a small mountain village in Japan, where our protagonist, 12 year old Ayumi, becomes involved with the world of youkai while the town is being hit by violent typhoons.

    Characters here are portrayed as human, not forest critters. The town contains a limited but varied cast of villagers, both kids and adults. And they're all adorable! In my opinion LTISY doesn't have the undertone of sadness, sometimes anger you might remember from NitW. Ayumi is pure as hell (when not hitting things with a baseball bat, read below), but everyone else is also fundamentally good. Expect plenty of hugs, apologies and good feelings.

    I've pointed out time and again that the writing was quite bad in several of the games I've been playing. I'm happy to say that the writing in this game is excellent. All dialogue is perfectly localized in english (don't expect any japanese language traits in the text). Interestingly, the village is crammed full of signage and posted notices all of which is in clear japanese (kanji and kana) which added an extra dimension of fun as I tried to use my very rudimentary knowledge fo decipher what was written.

    Most of the time, Ayumi is in possession of a baseball bat, and is not afraid to use it to break things, or spirits. Combat is ridiculously easy and not the focus of the game. In fact, the "hardest" thing you do with the baseball bat is the "tutorial" sequence with your friend. All platforming and puzzle solving are likewise trivial, so don't play the game for those. You will want to sit back and enjoy exploring, finding things and reading through the story/dialogue. There will be some amount of running around, retreading the same spaces (especially in town - outside town not so much) in order to do various sidequests, procure collectibles, purchase things and fulfill your objectives. If you want more of a gameplay challenge, however, there's a game-within-a-game in Ayumi's living room console, a single screen (a bit like Mario Bros.?) 1980s arcade style game that's fairly simple but extremely difficult to clear in full due to its unforgiving nature.

    The art is very interesting. In the autumn, in stormy weather, Ayumi's town has a dark, melancholy quality to it. Parallax with several layers of flat, textured materials are used to give the surroundings a complex, realistic vibe. The use of light and color are masterful and you'll be able to see various different moods for the town (including, in the epilogue, the town during spring!) depending on the weather and time of day. Characters themselves (humans and youkai) are rendered much more cartoonishly in lively colored line drawings that are almost but not quite anime-like. They're animated expressively, and the effect works well.

    I had a great time with this game and was sad it can be completed in less than 8 hours (not counting the arcade game). I would have been happy to spend longer in this world. It's a solid, well-made game that deserves a lot more recognition than it's getting.

    I also played Neva. A higher profile release due to being made by the Gris devs and published by Devolver Digital, I'd call Neva a pure platformer with a strong story component, conveyed visually. You play as a woman with a red... cape? riding hood? and who's accompanied by Neva, a young... wolf? The store page says wolf. She clearly has antlers though, like the creature from Hilda, and her species grows pretty big. I don't know if this is part of some country's folklore or not.

    Anyway, you're going on a platforming adventure with Neva, who will grow up from chapter to chapter. Neva's progression from a pup to a full fledged adult magical wolf-deer is well made; at the beginning of the game you constantly have to call her; she gets distracted and afraid and doesn't know what to do. As the game progresses, Neva becomes a reliable companion that you can ride and call to perform ranged attacks among other things, it's really cool.

    Speaking of combat, surprisingly, this game has a significant combat component. The world is being slowly overwhelmed by these terrifying nightmarish shadow creatures with a corrupting influence. They are tanky, and you can only take three hits (there's a refill mechanism when you deal hits of your own with your trusty sword though). It's silly but the combat against the creepy shadows immediately brought to mind the old, extremely difficult Heart of Darkness videogame, although I'm happy to say Neva isn't in any way janky like that was.

    The art is good as you might expect from the Gris developers. It makes use of strongly geometric and flat architectural elements (likewise) but also lush, complex trees and other natural elements that slowly give way to nightmarish corruption as the seasons change from Summer to Winter.

    Neva will make you even sadder than Last Time I Saw You as it can be played through in about 4 hours. In fact, I completed it in one single sitting. There are optional collectible flowers that may increase your play time as they can require some retreading to find later if you missed them, but they don't add much to the game. Still, it's a good if short game; it's up to you to decide how much that's worth to you, but I don't regret playing it!

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    4 votes

  4. Comment on Jet Lag: Hide + Seek Japan | Trailer in ~hobbies

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    Well, there's always Australia!

    Well, there's always Australia!

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Jet Lag: Hide + Seek Japan | Trailer in ~hobbies

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    I liked the road trip race in New Zealand and would recommend it first. There are also more Europe tag seasons if that's what you're craving.

    I liked the road trip race in New Zealand and would recommend it first. There are also more Europe tag seasons if that's what you're craving.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Nepenthes: a tarpit intended to catch AI web crawlers in ~tech

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    I'm not sure I understand this. Can you explain in greater detail? Do LLM spiders not crawl locations for which randomly generated URLs don't generate content?

    hitting randomly generated URLs to see if they present content

    I'm not sure I understand this. Can you explain in greater detail? Do LLM spiders not crawl locations for which randomly generated URLs don't generate content?

    1 vote

  7. Comment on The day Google killed the Pixel 4a in ~tech

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    Have you considered using an alternative android distribution?

    Have you considered using an alternative android distribution?

  8. Comment on Rant: Problems with UPS delivery going on for weeks now in ~talk

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    Concerning, as we near the end of my second day waiting for UPS and they still haven't deigned to drop by. It really gets me how these assholes are paid to deliver packages but find it perfectly...

    Concerning, as we near the end of my second day waiting for UPS and they still haven't deigned to drop by.

    It really gets me how these assholes are paid to deliver packages but find it perfectly normal to cost cut until entire days of people's lives are wasted on a regular basis, and no one is ever accountable. If any politicians wanted to work on creating real penalties for this behavior they might get my vote.

    Also, why is it always electronics? Cheap crap always arrives quickly.

    5 votes

  9. Comment on Why I make smart devices dumber: a privacy advocate's reflection in ~tech

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    For over two years I've been aware my home network's master router (TP-Link) was mediocre, but I finally just caved and bought one that's good enough to isolate individual devices from the...

    For over two years I've been aware my home network's master router (TP-Link) was mediocre, but I finally just caved and bought one that's good enough to isolate individual devices from the internet at large (I'll need it for the camera). The plan is to proxy any internet access I want them to have in a controlled manner.

    (By the way, it should have arrived today! What the hell, UPS? You make me wait 13 hours and just don't show up? Not even a word?)

    I suppose this marks a shift in my attitude toward smart devices in which I finally admitted (just last week!) that they are hostile to me and must be controlled from the outside. I just can't trust the buggers.

    I dragged my feet as much as I possibly could. I could have had an adblocker in my smart TV if LG hadn't patched the bug that allowed people to install homebrew. Now if I want to use youtube on my TV I have to see an ad every three minutes in some videos. And I can't use my VR headset without an internet connection, because they patched it to force all store-bought apps (including Virtual Desktop) to require online validation. Isn't it great when paying customers are the most inconvenienced? And I still remember Daikin breaking the wifi on their AC units with a bugged patch (in 2023 I think?)

    Replacing the firmware isn't always an option, either. Even assuming the device isn't capable of circumventing the firmware to phone home (like a smartphone's baseband chip might), brands tend to have fifty tiny regional variations of their models named according to some byzantine, opaque set of rules, and by definition most of them are not available everywhere, assuming the brand operates in my country at all. The intersection between the set of models available here and the set of models supported by custom firmware projects is much smaller, and might not overlap with the specs I need at all.

    This is a problem I had when picking both the camera and the router (and believe me, I spent many hours researching this), so much so that I ended up giving up on running openwrt and just going with an asus router compatible with asuswrt-merlin...

    6 votes

  10. Comment on The trouble with Elon Musk in ~tech

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    So if a multibillionaire chooses to cut ties with you in order to get out of paying to charity a million dollar bet that he himself insisted on making... I'm sorry to say that I think it's the latter.

    If Elon is still the man I knew, I can only conclude that I never really knew him.

    So if a multibillionaire chooses to cut ties with you in order to get out of paying to charity a million dollar bet that he himself insisted on making... I'm sorry to say that I think it's the latter.

    38 votes

  11. Comment on Until Dawn | Film first look in ~movies

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    Should be The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Movie. In fact, I'll be disappointed if they don't use the song!

    Should be The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Movie.

    In fact, I'll be disappointed if they don't use the song!

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Proton CEO tweets support for Donald Trump's Department of Justice pick and the US Republican Party in ~society

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    You've succintly put into words what I've been feeling over the last month. I think terrible people are emboldened across the board, and uncaring, unethical businesspeople just want to do and say...

    You've succintly put into words what I've been feeling over the last month.

    I think terrible people are emboldened across the board, and uncaring, unethical businesspeople just want to do and say what they think will ensure the most profit for their businesses going forward.

    16 votes

  13. Comment on Proton CEO tweets support for Donald Trump's Department of Justice pick and the US Republican Party in ~society

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    fastmail is typically the recommendation for paid e-mail services. I run my own e-mail, but if I didn't I have the notion in the back of my mind that fastmail is the service I should look into....

    fastmail is typically the recommendation for paid e-mail services. I run my own e-mail, but if I didn't I have the notion in the back of my mind that fastmail is the service I should look into.

    Proton is pretty good for easy to create but still generally "trusted" anonymous/disposable e-mail addresses though!

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Jet Lag: Hide + Seek Japan | Trailer in ~hobbies

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    Final episode spoilers Why doesn't Sam use his curses instead of discarding them? Makes me wonder if they had conflicting notions about whether the hider can use cards before drawing new cards...
    Final episode spoilers Why doesn't Sam use his curses instead of discarding them? Makes me wonder if they had conflicting notions about whether the hider can use cards before drawing new cards...
    1 vote

  15. Comment on GOG joins European Federation of Game Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects (EFGAMP), expanding its game preservation efforts in ~games

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    Your spreadsheet link also points at the nuclear throne page. Did you mean this spreadsheet?

    Your spreadsheet link also points at the nuclear throne page. Did you mean this spreadsheet?

    1 vote

  16. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

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    I played Caravan SandWitch, a winter sale purchase. It's a 3D sci-fi narrative open world game with exploration, fetch quests and no combat. You play as a girl who lives in a space station, but...

    I played Caravan SandWitch, a winter sale purchase. It's a 3D sci-fi narrative open world game with exploration, fetch quests and no combat. You play as a girl who lives in a space station, but upon receiving a message from her presumed dead elder sister runs off back to the planetary colony where she grew up in order to do what she can to find her.

    The world building is quite good. You will learn about the Consortium that founded the colony, as well as the native aliens, and the exploitative relationship between the two, why it came about and what its effects were. Everything fits well together and makes sense. The various inhabitants of the Cigalo colony/planet have their own stories and personalities, although unfortunately this isn't explored too much.

    CSW features a designed world - like, say, The Witness, or Outer Wilds - meaning nothing is "randomly generated". It has a really great aesthetic, with toon shaded but good looking graphics, good use of color, great sound design, cozy and pleasant to explore, if (unfortunately) not very large. There is a photo mode and vistas worth using it with. There is a really nice informal climbing mechanic (think Breath of the Wild, not Jusant), surprisingly well implemented for an indie game, which really makes you feel like you can go "anywhere". There are sidequests and things and places to find.

    A core mechanic in the game is your van, which you receive near the beginning of the game. The van visually displays mementos from your journey as well as technological upgrades installed by your tech wizard friend. Unlike what you might expect, your vehicle makes traversal harder, not easier, since the protagonist is so scrappy. Bringing the van with you is all about using its tools to open doors and passages and gaining access to otherwise blocked out spaces. There is a really cool and seriously underutilized sensor/hacking mode which displays electrical devices and circuits, tagged by name, most of the time to no purpose. You could almost have made a full game out of that alone.

    The writing is generally atrocious. Possibly it was badly translated and localized from another language (french?) I couldn't always parse what was being said at all (dialogue is written; there is no voice acting). Often the attitudes of the characters didn't seem to make sense; they seemed forced, with contrived drama and illogical or inconsistent decisions being made. Things weren't always evenly bad, though, so I don't know. Sometimes it almost felt like they had a real writer.

    There were some non-primary but serious gameplay design issues. For example, some quests require using the van to help one of the other characters. These quests force you into the van with no warning, and then force you to follow a predetermined path through the world; any attempt to alter your route too much and you're forced to redo from start. During these quests you're locked inside the van; the button to get out (prominently displayed in the UI) doesn't work. You are unable to optimize your routing through the world and do multiple quests at once; the quest will force you back into the van and you will have to drive all the way back before you're released from your torment. Fuck these quests!

    Amusingly for a climbing-oriented game, there are no fall "consequences" (there is no health bar, but they could easily have teleported you to the van or something). You can just drop from fifty meters and you're fine; you don't even bend your legs to absorb the impact! In one way that's pretty good for frustration mitigation but it never stops being hilarious.

    Other issues include the quest list UI not always actually telling you what you're supposed to be doing; if you took the quest in a previous play session, good luck remembering! Sometimes your action button stops working and you have to open and close the menu to get it back. It's also possible for it to be bound to two things at the same time, preventing it from doing what it should do according to the prompt on the screen. It seems like there are bugs in quest tracking and completion; I'm pretty sure I did "everything" but I failed to get some achievements I should have gotten (there are other complaints about this online).

    Speaking of which, don't visit the steam forum. LGBTQ people exist in this sci-fi future, and a lot of people are very mad and preachy about that.

    Overall, Caravan SandWitch was an entertaining experience with some really strong points but where the inexperience of the developers also sometimes shines through. I don't regret the discounted purchase. The game is fully playable in less than 12 hours.

    Previous

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Jet Lag: Hide + Seek Japan | Trailer in ~hobbies

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    If Malle runs out I can also provide them.

    If Malle runs out I can also provide them.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on What are your favourite TV shows of all time? in ~tv

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    With such excellent taste, you must be my long lost sibling!

    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - this might be the perfect show.

    With such excellent taste, you must be my long lost sibling!

    3 votes

  19. Comment on What are your favourite TV shows of all time? in ~tv

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    This is one of a very small amount of long shows I could actually stand to watch every single season of (and enjoyed every episode). Normally the shows I love get cancelled after 2 seasons tops.

    This is one of a very small amount of long shows I could actually stand to watch every single season of (and enjoyed every episode).

    Normally the shows I love get cancelled after 2 seasons tops.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on If your games library disappeared, which games would you repurchase? in ~games

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    When you reference LAN and servers in the same paragraph I'm not entirely sure how you expect the setup to be (I don't play AoE3), but I believe the last time I played the person hosting invited...

    When you reference LAN and servers in the same paragraph I'm not entirely sure how you expect the setup to be (I don't play AoE3), but I believe the last time I played the person hosting invited people over Steam. Did they remove the original ability to connect via IP address at some point?